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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Lot's of dieters right now are talking about how hard it is to eat healthily now that they don't have as much money to spend on food as they used to. Yes, the economy has hit everyone hard, but eating healthy on a budget is still very easy with a little know how. In fact, buying healthier foods can actually help us save a lot of cash.

All it takes is for you to keep track of your expenses. Have you ever kept a record of how much you spend on food every week? Most people don't. If you do this, you naturally save pennies.

Start tracking all of your food expenses. This includes any kind of food you eat – trips to the donut shop, meals from restaurants, pints of beer at the pub etc. As time progresses, saving money on food will just get easier and easier. You will able to see your average expenses per week and per month.

When you do this, it opens your eyes to where you are spending money on unnecessary foods. Then, you can start making wiser choices.

Here's a few examples, for each doughnut you buy from the bakers, you could buy say a whole box of cereal bars for only a little more than the cost of one doughnut. So, if you ate one cereal bar from your box each day rather than buying a doughnut a day, you'd save a lot of money and lose a lot of weight!

Here's another example, you total up all your expenses and notice that you buy 5 sandwiches a week from a sandwich shop. You could spend less money on a loaf of wholemeal bread, fresh salad and healthy sliced meat. Then you could make 5 sandwiches from home for the same cost of 2 sandwiches from the sandwich shop.

Major savings can be made in supermarket shopping. One method to save is to buy fruits and vegetables in bulk quantities as this gives you a better price. A word about vegetables – avoid trimmed vegetables as they tend to cost more.

Things like potatoes, garlic, ginger and onions are relatively cheap and carry strong health benefits like strengthening the immune system.

With regards to meats, do not buy boneless meat as this will be more expensive. Avoid red meat as much as you can and opt for white meat. This is easier on the wallet and the heart.

If you eat high calorie foods for your breakfast, changing to a healthier breakfast can help you save a lot of pennies. If you eat fried bacon and eggs for breakfast, you'd be a lot better of financially and health-wise if you bought things like oatmeal and whole wheat muffins instead.

If you are going to eat things like pizzas and burgers, make these at home and avoid eating out at restaurants. The kind you can make at home will be a lot healthier than the types you would get in restaurants. Also, if possible, try to invite your friends around more often instead of going out to pubs. We all know how our wallets can get drained quickly when we go to pubs often.

Believe it or not, eating healthily can actually be a good way to save money. Keep track of your food expenses and you'll be surprised at how much you can save by cutting out the junk and buying healthier alternatives. A great diet that you can lose weight with and you can save money on is The Lunch Box Diet by Simon Lovell. In fact MSN reported that this diet could save you hundreds per year if you stick to it.